RE: Accessible PDFs?

We are back in a discussion of why anyone would want to use paper.  I know
that, for visually impaired people, paper is not a good medium.  However,
for the larger populace, paper is a very good medium for learning and
working with information.  It has many advantages over screens.  Like the
need for ramps or corner cuts, we don't ask that they not put in stairs or
escalators, etc., just that we have ramps.  HTML is a bad format for putting
things on paper, because it has no page break concept that seems to work
well.  And, getting things in exactly the right typeface to meet the legal
requirements of having certain text in at least xx points and bolded to be
sure it is visible and noticeable is more difficult in HTML, but easy in
PDF.  Many laws require that certain government and contractual documents be
displayed with these typeface considerations.  And, to do forms and get the
OCR readers reliable, getting the form in exactly the right place is
important.  And, certain documents are required by law to be printed, filled
in, and signed.  Those laws should be changed, at least when digital
signatures are well accepted, but for now they must be obeyed.

How do we meet all the requirements, not just accessibility?

Dan



-----Original Message-----
From: David Poehlman [mailto:poehlman1@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 5:52 AM
To: Scarlett Julian (ED); w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Accessible PDFs?



It will be several years if at all before we can say that pdf is
accessible.  Yes, It is correct to say that There are some circumstances
where in it is possible to provide access to and accessible pdf
documents but those are few in the world and we already have a ton of
formats that are better suited for accessibility.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scarlett Julian (ED)" <Julian.Scarlett@sheffield.gov.uk>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 3:33 AM
Subject: RE: Accessible PDFs?



Bob

that's a less than useful answer in that it doesn't really give a true
picture of the situation. Yes, it's true that AT cannot read pdf
documents
created using Acrobat 4 but (correct me if I'm wrong) it *is* possible
using
version 5 to produce documents that are accessible if the creator knows
what
they're doing. We are now in a situation where pdf holds similar ground
to
html in that unless the developer knows what they're doing the resulting
documents will be inaccessible to some extent. Given that people will
still
continue to use pdf shouldn't we be giving a more upbeat message about
how
to create accessible versions otherwise we're going to be stuck with
documents that theoretically can be made accessible but aren't because
the
creators don't know that it can be done. This is an *interest* group and
to
my mind that means exploring possibilities and trying to produce
solutions.
Or am I yet another who has seriously misjudged the remit of the list?

Julian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Access Systems [mailto:accessys@smart.net]
> Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 1:11 AM
> To: Matthew Smith
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Accessible PDFs?
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Matthew Smith wrote:
>
> nope, rarely, hardly ever
>
> Bob
>
>
> > Can anyone tell me if Assitive Technologies are able to read PDF
> > documents?  More and more "offline" content is being held
> on web sites
> > in this format, so it would be nice to think that it is actually
> > accessible...
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > M
> >
> >
>
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Received on Monday, 2 December 2002 08:46:06 UTC